January 26, 2010

There have been villains, and heroes putting themselves on the line to stop them. Well VS System is no different. With the end of UDE's set releases the fan community has taken things upon themselves to continue the game with fan sets, ban and card wording updates and other suggestions. With our local group adding fan sets on our own schedule I will be maintaining the following "age" list.

As you'll see, Evolutions is now only legal in Golden Age tournaments for our hobby league. I feel there are still a lot of power issues with this set, but don't want to ban an entire set from league play. We will start playing more age-specific events to encourage building new decks.

January 18, 2010

Ok it's been a few days, but our first constructed VS System event for 2010 has come and gone. I was really happy to see an increase in our attendance to a total of eight players!

Round 1 put me up against Jordan's Avengers deck. He had a great start with 2-cost Captain America in the hidden area complete with Captain America's Shield. I was playing my JSA-Lobo deck. When the 4-cost Iron Man arrived to bolster Cap and Black Widow things weren't looking too hot for my lonely visible Atom Smasher. I did have the Mr. Terrifics hiding and making him mean, but things weren't looking good...but the shield's exhausting effects were starting to help more than hurt at that point.

On turn five I was able to bring out the 5-cost Carter Hall. I got some choice stuns and was able to avoid triggering Iron Man's effect, only to have my Hawkman stolen by a timely-played Switching Sides! Drawing into another 5-cost Hawkman actually proved to be the game-breaker, and Jordan unhappily dropping no character. Initiative was mine and I'd saved up a couple of Press The Attacks, allowing me to swing three time with Hawkman. He was able to stun all three visible opposing characters on his own! Black Panther wasn't able to get through the wall that Atom Smasher had become and victory was mine.

Round 2 was short and painful. My deck was up against Scott's Inhuman/Skrull deck that abuses the Skrull version of Captain America and Franklin Richards. I knew I was done by turn two, as I had no way to get into the hidden area with this deck. I missed both my 1-cost and 3-cost Mr. Terrifics but was somehow able to survive until turn six and play a Lobo, and trigger his effect twice. However, never being able to stun back an attacking character on Scott's initiative that game really was over before it started.

Round 3 put me up against Dan's X-Force deck. X-23 was able to do big damage to me several times through the game, but Carter Hall came up big again. I under-dropped Jakeem several times to keep the costs of my characters lower than his, and was able to pull out the Hawkman / Lobo set-up on turn seven. Even with the massive Warpath on the other side of the table things were looking grim for Dan. The game lasted to turn eight, but on my initiative I drew into my Black Adam. The small boost to attack he gave to all my characters tied things up and we were done. I think if Dan had drawn one or two different defensive plot twists the game would have been his.

I ended up placing third behind William and Scott. After the third round was finished everyone drafted out their prize choices for the night and we headed off for a beer. Next week: Bring Your Own Two Teams, and more new prize goodness. Don't miss out!

January 13, 2010

January 06, 2010

Things are looking up for us this year. I'm very excited about the move to weekly tournaments. With this change you might have noticed the little monthly schedule on the right panel, which replaces the bi-weekly tournament information. It's easier and more practical to post the schedule for the entire month, as it gives you a chance to plan your gaming in advance.

Our first tournament of the year will be sealed Marvel draft. The set hasn't been determined yet, so you'll just have to come down and see what we've got. The schedule will follow the pattern you see there *points to the right*. The first Friday will be a sealed event of some kind, for as long as I'm able to get sealed product to play with. The second and fourth weeks will remain as Golden Age constructed events, and the third will be different a themed event each month. Should we end up with a fifth Friday in the month...well I'll come up with something!

On a different but related note, our new prizes are not yet ready to go. What that means is that this week we'll be playing for some older UDE prize cards, but next week we'll have some shiny new toys to enjoy. I'll also be happy to recap the plans for the year should anyone have questions.

Happy New Year and Happy Gaming. Bring out your cardboard super heroes and villains and wage battle over the tabletop this, and (almost) every, Friday night!

January 05, 2010

"FFG will be changing the collation of our monthly packs, adopting an approach that both existing and potential LCG customers have been requesting. Once fully implemented across all of our LCG’s, your monthly packs will include 60 cards, consisting of 20 unique cards in triplicate copy!"

No longer will we have to buy multiple packs in order to get three copies of that one super-awesome card needed for our decks. I love the living card game model, and this upcoming change makes thing even better.

The change to the new pack model will come into effect for each LCG with the start of their next pack phase. For Call of Cthulhu this will be after Dreamlands. For Warhammer: Invasion the changes will take place after the final pack of the Skavenblight cycle.